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Hi Everyone,

My recent topic on the crack back, which was caused by the RH fluctuation, has set me thinking.

How did Torres manage to control the RH during his time.
I believe that at that time the dehumdifier or the air con has not been invented?

Any one to enlighten me?

Sen

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Sen CL Goh
http://senguitar.blogspot.com

Great question, I'd like to know that as well.

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I don't know whether Torres, et al. did anything active to control RH, but it seems to me that since they didn't have central heating or air conditioning, vapor barriers or extremely weather-tight buildings, that the extremes and changes of RH were less dramatic in Torres' time. As long as the builders were comfortable, it was probably ok to assemble instruments. Any other thoughts on that?

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Maybe he put another log on the stove? Or a pot of water? Closed the window? Opened the window?

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

They probably also used woods that had cycled for many seasons before they were applied to the instrument. Just a thought....

Shane

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Canada

Two points, Torres wood was very well seasoned and stable by the time it was used for construction having been stored on the roof of the workshop under a tiled cover where it was heated up by the Spanish sun during the day and cooled down again at night over very many cycles. But yes he did take note of the the RH for his construction. He, and I suppose the other builders of the time would have used a hygrometer of thin spruce slats that were fixed at one point and moved with changes in the humidity.

As the wind came off the sea during most of the day bringing humid air this was not a time for assembling the guitar. It is noted that he tended to burn the midnight oil and do most of the assembly in late afternoon and into the night when the RH would have dropped and the dry viento terral would blow in from the mountains and RH drops by 20% or so.

Makers back into dim history were aware of the problem and would use similar systems to suit their location.

Perhaps Joshua, Shawn or John Elshaw will come in as they are more expert than I am.

Colin

PS all guitars builders, not just classical ones should have Jose Romanilos' book on Torres.

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

The Spanish "siesta" was obviously part of the hunidity control programme When it got too dry it was time to break out the rioja.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Jose Romanillos states that at Almeria, the RH can change from the high 80s to the mid 50s in a just few hours each day as the wind changes from the sea to the mountains. So, the night time change in wind direction would make assembly at night most likely. He didn't allow strangers into his workshop and was very close with his secrects but that is the scenario as envisaged.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Back about thirty five years ago, I became aquainted with a Brit resident in Majorca, George Bowden, who had a guitar shop and was a maker. Neither he nor most of the makers he knew had any way to control humidity, but they did monitor it, at least 'by feel'. He mentioned that he know one maker inland who only assembled guitars when the air was dry. For those three months or so, he worked 12-14 hours a day gluing bracing to the tops and backs and putting bodies togehter. The rest of the year he did finish work, made parts, and inlaid rosettes.   

Quite right Alan, Torres may not have had digital hygrometers or de-humidifiers, but what he did have was supreme 'feel'(that and his little bits of spruce) he 'knew' when it was the right time to glue wood together.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

This past summer at the Romanillos course in Siguenza we would hold off  doing operations such as gluing backs etc. when the humidity was up. It could (and did) drop as much as 20% when the dry  winds blew in.

A thin unbraced spruce top will react very quickly to humidity change so I'm sure experienced builders like Torres had (crude perhaps by our standards) sophisticated ways to deal with the effects. 

  

Torres had a really good dehumifier (Sears) and a really good air conditioner in his shop. In the winter, he cranked up his radiant floor heating system, and also had a Sears humdifier.

Honest!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
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page 129 of the Torres book by Romanillos tells of a wooden devise.
It's to long to type out for me!
Anyone else good at typing?


Mike

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Mike Collins

A similar question could be asked about Martin. For most of their history would not have had any form of active humidity control. Pennsylvania can have some wild humidity swings. It could be in the 90% range in the summer and the low 20% range in the winter. They had a factory with production schedules. Could they have taken the summer off or just make brace wood or carved necks?

It's not too difficult to construct a rudimentary hygrometer. I don't think there would have been a need for him to "feel" the Humidity.

No body would bother these days with cheap digital devices available. But before digital hygrometers were available they weren't much more than a piece of horse hair tied to a spring and a needle with a scale to read the needle against. Surprisingly accurate.

What Colin Said.
What Al Carruth said.
What DP LaPlante said.
What Mike Collins said.



Here's a cool link that has nothing to do with humidity (still cool, though): Torres Home

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What Colin Said.
What Al Carruth said.
What DP LaPlante said.
What Mike Collins said.

In addition to what David mentioned, there was one of the people in the Romanillos class this year that was ready to ready to glue on his braced back and close up his guitar. When he came back in the morning to glue on his back, the back had bowed the opposite direction and had to wait until later in the day when the humidity swung back so that the back had straightened out and could be glued.

The workshop we used at the monastery where the Romanillos class was held was essentially an open air shop in that it was a single long room about 9 meters wide by 18 meters long with windows on each side that were kept open most of the time.

When the humidity was too dry we would close the windows and the room humidity would raise and when it was too humid we would open the windows. This was vbery close to the way that Torres and other Spanish builders dealt with humidity.

You know, I'm getting the feeling you guys don't believe me....

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

 

Don....it isn't that we don't believe you, it's just that we don't consider Sears to be all that good........................................

 

<G> not really............

If I remember correctly, in an American Lutherie article where Alan Carruth interviewed Carleen Hutchins, she talked about a wooden humidity indicator of some sort that involved two species of wood to indicate humidity.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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[QUOTE=PaulB] It's not too difficult to construct a rudimentary hygrometer. I don't think there would have been a need for him to "feel" the Humidity.

No body would bother these days with cheap digital devices available. But before digital hygrometers were available they weren't much more than a piece of horse hair tied to a spring and a needle with a scale to read the needle against. Surprisingly accurate.[/QUOTE]


I'd forgotten about this, Paul. I built a horse hair hygrometer as a 6th grade science project about 48 years ago. It worked well!

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

[QUOTE=burbank] If I remember correctly, in an American Lutherie article where Alan Carruth interviewed Carleen Hutchins, she talked about a wooden humidity indicator of some sort that involved two species of wood to indicate humidity. [/QUOTE]

Yes indeed Romanillos mentions it in his book as did I in my first post above.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

[QUOTE=Colin S] [QUOTE=burbank] If I remember correctly, in an American Lutherie article where Alan Carruth interviewed Carleen Hutchins, she talked about a wooden humidity indicator of some sort that involved two species of wood to indicate humidity. [/QUOTE]

Yes indeed Romanillos mentions it in his book as did I in my first post above.

Colin[/QUOTE]

Sorry Colin, I missed that. Perhaps I should be slower in my reading, and not quite so quick to post.

[QUOTE=Hesh1956] Sen great question and it's also great to see you asking it
[/QUOTE]
Thanks Hesh, I just thought that this is something that we can definitely learn from the great master Torres and something that might solve my problem

However from the replies, I can see that the answer involved profound experience and knowledge, something that is beyond me at this moment.
I guess it will be back to a search for dehumidifier for me .

But it's amazing that the great masters, though did not have any scientific equipments to aid them, were very observant and aware of their environment.
They knew exactly how their environment will affect their work and how to live with and excel (in their work) amidst the constraint imposed by their environment.
I have nothing except awe and respect for the great masters.

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Sen CL Goh
http://senguitar.blogspot.com